Medea
by phfina
Summary: Chapter summary: "There is nothing to fear except fear itself!" Okay, the guy who said that? A total idiot. Oh, wait: I said 'guy' and 'idiot' in the same breath. Isn't that a redundancy? I meant: 'oxymoron.' Like 'most' guys: morons. Not that I'm being sarcastic or anything. Not that I have any reason to be. Tied up to be sacrificed to a flesh-eating monster. I'm like: the fuck?
1. φόρος — tribute

**Chapter summary: **1. The gods exist, so 2. don't piss them off by not believing in them. Also don't answer back to men in power when you're a woman with no one to defend you. And 3. I'm dead. I'm _so_ dead.

* * *

"Drink this."

I looked at the woman holding out the goblet of wine to me. She was a large, older woman, with a no-nonsense, careless air about her. She didn't care if I drank the offered wine, or if I didn't.

But why why wasn't she offering anything to any of the other captives?

I looked at her carefully for signs of charity. I saw none. I looked for duplicity. Again, nothing.

I saw boredom, with growing impatience.

I had to ask. "Is it ... is it poisoned?"

She shrugged. "Drugged."

My eyes widened in surprise at her blunt honesty. "Then why would I drink it?"

"You've been chosen," she said plainly. "This will help you."

"Survive?" I asked.

The woman looked at me with derision, as if I were the stupidest person she ever saw.

That was galling. After all, she was Cretan. I was from Athens, if there was a stupid person in this chamber, she'd do well to regard herself in the glass.

"No," she answered simply. "The last girl sacrificed didn't make it off the table ... not in one piece anyway. She didn't even last half a minute when the beast ... took her. This drink will take away ... most of the pain and make your end, not ... pleasant, but it won't be so shockingly agonizing that you may face your end bravely, and not shame yourself."

"And so that I can last longer for you Cretan's entertainment?" I demanded. I felt my face flushing with indignation.

The woman shrugged, unconcerned. "You have fight in you. Good. But now is not the time to be brave, girl. Save your bravery when your end comes in the labyrinth."

"And that will help? Being brave?" I asked.

I'm afraid I asked because I didn't know what to expect. One isn't usually prepared for these situations in life.

A virgin sacrifice to a monster.

And the thing was, I'm not a virgin anymore. I barely qualify as a maid anymore, being in my twenty-first year, this is: years and years past a desirably marriageable age, but when I pointed this out, again, I was met with an indifferent shrug.

'Yes, you are,' I was told.

I wondered, then, if all Cretans were simple. I mean, I should know if I was a virgin or not, and they could have easily verify this in a moment, those lecherous goons, who didn't despoil me, but who also didn't mind handling the cargo they transported us.

Bastards.

But they just didn't care. I told them I wasn't a virgin, and they said I was unwed, and, to the beast _every_ woman was a virgin, even if she had just borne her fifth child, as he was so monstrous, nine feet tall and almost as wide as a man standing. Any woman offered to him would be a first offering for him, and that was good enough for him, so that was good enough for them, too.

And that's what I was singled out to be, apparently: an offering.

We all were, actually, all fourteen of us an offering to the beast, but apparently I was special.

Always had that problem, and have hated it. I've always been noticed. It's not that I'm a beauty, I'm fair, but not stunning, curvy but not generous, more dryad-like, a nymph, rather than a goddess in figure and looks.

I mean, I wasn't wise like Athena, nor beautiful and beloved, like Aphrodite, nor lithesome, sure-footed, and deadly, like Artemis. I was none of these things. I'm only human. I'm just a girl, trying to make her way through this world, and make sense of it.

But my sharp tongue, ... that I cannot still to save my life ...

I always knew it would be my undoing, and it was. I was noticed. I don't know how, or by whom, but I was one of the special ones chosen as tribute to appease the Cretan oppressors, intellectually our inferiors, but they had strength in numbers, so ...

So here I was, probably with most of Athens heaving a sigh of relief, being now unburdened with one of her most troublesome children.

I am Medea.

And you are ...? I don't know your name, but you are one of the lucky ones reading this scroll, not writing it. Reading my experiences, not having to go through them.

Thank the gods for your fortune, or rather ... don't. Being noticed by the gods is never a good thing. They could care less about us mere mortals, and on top of that, they're a major pain in the ass. I know, from first-hand experience. That is, I know now.

But I get ahead of myself.

I looked down at the offered cup, dubiously, then shook my head, regretfully.

"No," I said.

The woman affected faint surprise.

"I want my wits about me when the time comes," I explained.

She snorted: a large blast of air. I stilled my hand from wiping her spittle from my eye.

Cretans and true Greeks, Athenians, were always spoiling to give insult and to find it in the slightest thing. I didn't need to antagonize my jailor.

Besides, she brought friends. Lots of them. Some of them armed to the teeth.

"Your wits won't save you, girl," she boomed, and several of the guards laughed appreciatively. "Besides," she said, "this will heighten your wits as it dulls your senses. You will be awake and alert, but you will not feel pain. Don't be a fool, girl: drink this, and spare cursing yourself later for not taking this balm when you needed it most."

I looked at the cup again. The wine was syrupy with a potion that smelled both cloying and compelling. I looked back up at her as I took the cup.

"You're not lying to me?" I asked cautiously.

She snorted again, "Why would I?"

I thought of a thousand reasons why she would, right off the top of my head, but she just seemed not to care, either way.

If she were lying to me, and I died of this drink, I'd be spared from having to face the unknown, and if ...

I sighed. _Thinking too much, again, as always, Medea,_ I scolded myself, and quaffed it, quickly.

Mistake.

I hit the stone floor like a sack of potatoes. The cup fell from my nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor.

"Wow," I gasped. But that was all I could manage.

"Hm," I heard, but could not see the woman anymore as she said it, as darkness covered my eyes that did not close. "Perhaps I mixed the dosage too strongly for one so slight as you. Ah, well; so it goes." Then, commandingly: "Prepare her."

Then I heard, and felt, no more.

* * *

**A/N:** Hi, my lovelies! Back to my roots. Uh, this is the 'un-darkest' chapter, so, upcoming: rape, murder, vore, and then worse: the things people do, and say, to people because they can.


	2. ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός — craned

**Chapter summary: **Do you know what 'ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός' means? It means me, not a goddess, but still lowered down from a crane into the maze, to be sacrificed to the beast, that ravenous monster. And I was dinner. Or, as it turned out: I was dessert.

* * *

When I came to again, finally, I felt so sick and disoriented...

... and blinded. I was looking up into the bright, bright blue sky, a brushing of cirrus clouds high, high overhead and nothing else, except where the Sun was shining harshly on my face.

Apollo was not being merciful today, and when I looked to him, big patches of black searing light blinded me.

So I couldn't look at the Sun.

But I felt so queasy, like I was swaying back and forth, but that was wrong, because I couldn't move: my arms felt like Spartan money — two bars of lead.

And I couldn't feel my legs at all. And that ... scared me. Maybe they knew I wanted to run. The woman said: 'prepare her,' ... did they cut off my legs so I couldn't run and hide from the beast?

The clouds. The clouds were ... wrong. They swayed back and forth, like I was at sea.

Maybe I was. Maybe they put me on a skiff.

Ugh.

I vomited bile out the side of my mouth, weakly, but so, so much came out of my stomach as I evacuated myself.

"She's coming to!" a gruff male voice shouted loudly, and I winced. My head was pounding.

The man's face filled my view, but I could barely see him, because his shadow covered my face, and his face was limned in sunlight. It didn't make him look beatific or glorious, it just darkened his harsh Cretan features to indistinguishability.

"Easy, lass," he said not unkindly. "We're almost there, and then ..."

He stopped abruptly and looked away, waving frantically. "Lower her down!" he shouted impatiently.

I winced again at his bellow, but then I felt more movement, a sinking feeling, and I had to concentrate hard so as not to vomit again.

_Thunk!_

We came to a sudden stop, which only further disoriented me, and then I felt the whisper of coils on me, and I almost seized up.

_Snakes?_

I tried to remain utterly still. Not that I'm terrified of snakes, it's just that they're a nuisance. You don't see them, they don't see you and either you crush them with a rock when you stamp their head under your sandal, or they bite you and you die in agony or just get the antidote in time.

A nuisance, and I didn't need my body to twitch and startle one into biting me. Not now. I had enough problems as it was.

But it wasn't snakes, I found to my relief. A rope wound thrice and bound with tar, dangling from a crane as tall as the tallest dwelling I had ever seen, swirled lazily above me. The man was busy loosening the bitter ends of the twining from a table I was resting on.

"Where am I?" I asked weakly, helplessly to the man. He was Cretan, but he didn't look cruel like his companions.

He looked up from his work into my face and shook his head. "This side of the River Styx, lass," he said, and returned to his work.

Then he paused again, thinking, and said, granting me the mercy of knowledge, I suppose: "You've been dropped into the dead-center of the labyrinth."

I looked back up at the blue, blue sky. "So, I suppose any way I go from here is a good way to get out?"

I don't know why I shared with this information with him. I suppose I just needed to talk to somebody, and not hear them jeer at me or to feel callousness back.

He snorted in surprise. "There is only one way out. Once a body enters the maze, it spells them, and round, and round you go until you meet your end. The ... beast."

He looked away.

"Oh," I said.

Then I asked quietly: "But how will you get out then?"

He stood and smiled down at me. Then he took the bitter end of the rope, and tied it around himself.

"Oh," I said.

He didn't ascend however. He took a wine flask from tunic and lifted my head.

"From the head mistress," he said.

"Uh," I said, with a sharp look, "I thank you, but no, thanks, okay?"

He shook his head. "Not your option," he said coolly, then forced my mouth open, tilted my head back, and started pouring in the thick, sweet concoction into my mouth.

I looked up to him with pleading eyes. My eyes begged as my full mouth could not: _'Please don't do this to me!'_

"She's actually doing you a favor, you know," he explained.

As the liquid hit the back of my throat, I tried to close it off, but my throat, tightening up, actually forced the liquid into me.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks, and my throat relaxed.

And I was lost. I was lost to it as it kept pouring from the flask, into my mouth, and down my throat.

I waited for the blackness to overtake me.

But it didn't.

I guess she had readjusted the dosage for my 'slight frame.'

I didn't know if I should be offended that she saw me as just a slip of a girl, or if should be relieved that she didn't give me a dosage that would nearly kill me, but for her, with her ... 'not-so-slight' frame, she'd just take for her afternoon siesta.

Her attitude really pissed me off. I just mention that, in case you haven't noticed.

But then, this one was a slow burn, like a snake coiled in my stomach, and it didn't hit me, it crawled through my insides, a bitter taste and a numbing feel that was absolutely terrifying. I couldn't feel my legs anymore, but now my stomach went dull and dead, and I vomited again, desperate and scared.

You're not supposed to vomit out poison, by the way, it only empties your stomach of everything else and allows the poison to attack you much more directly.

But try telling my rebellious body that.

"Easy, lass," the man said, "easy."

"How is this," I heaved again then spat, "supposed to be helping me? I'd really like to know!"

He looked down at me and placed his hand on my head.

I felt it like a distant, indistinct thing.

"When you see the beast, and it sees you ... you will know."

He raised his hand to the rope and yanked hard, twice, then shouted, "Okay, lift me out!"

I winced, because I knew his loud words were supposed to hurt my head. That they didn't only made me feel worse.

But nothing happened.

He looked annoyed. He yanked again, twice. "I said ..."

Loud guffaws floated from the outside world.

The man's face puckered with anger. _"Bastards!"_ he muttered angrily, then, looking down at me sourly, started his own ascent, hand-over-hand, puffing with the effort of lifting himself up out of this vast central chamber of the maze.

It was, easily, twice the size of a villa housing a family and their slaves and guards.

When he had safely ascended ten or twenty feet up out of the chamber, the crane still far above his head, he looked back down at me. "I will pray for you, that your end comes quickly."

I looked up at him, disoriented, with a sick, detached feeling from my body. "I thank you," I said. "But prayer does nothing: the gods are just comforting explanations of things people have no explanations for, their surcease from reality and the evils they visit upon themselves. _This_ is reality, sir, and praying doesn't change it, no matter how well-intentioned."

He stopped his ascent, looking down at me, thunderstruck. "And this is your comfort?"

I tried to shrug. There was no comfort, there was just what was before me.

I couldn't feel my shoulders anymore, but I guess he saw my movement, however slight.

His face twisted up into a frown. _"Athenians,"_ he spat. He hung there for a moment, then shook his head. "I'll still pray for you."

Then he turned and continued his climb.

"I thank you," I whispered.

But he was shouting again. "Hey, assholes!" he shouted to beyond the crane. "You think this is a fucking joke? Let's see you guys laugh when the beast is the one who climbs out of the pit. It'll be really fucking funny then with half of Knossos to arms and the rest fearing for their lives!"

"Oh, c'mon, Lysippus!" a sarcastic voice floated back. "Like it can climb with hooves, how?"

Lysippus just shook his head, continuing to climb. _"Idiots!"_ he muttered, then shouted: "that's what ... what? The last two guards and that one slave girl thought when it was his feeding time, or are you snot-nosed kids too young to remember when the beast was finally corralled into the labyrinth, huh?"

The man called Lysippus was not amused by the joke being played on him, it appeared.

I watched him ascend. The rope, tied around his waste rose, too, and looking at it, I saw the nadir ascend twice as slowly as the man.

I knew this: I'm Athenian.

But then, the rope jerked, and Lysippus' hands went white, holding onto the rope which now ascended under the power of the pulleys of the crane.

The Sun, the orb itself, began to turn black, and the black light hurt my eyes, but my eyes felt in my skull, but distant from me, and I felt secured to the table, immobile, but floating on the air, like the table were not there at all.

Then the blue, blue sky blackened.

Then the air.

And the black air entered my lungs, and filled me with blackness, and I knew no more.

* * *

**A/N: **_Deus ex machina_ (ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός) was not, originally, a literary plot device (meaning something like, "yeah, so the heroin is in this impossible bind, but then a bunch of random stuff happens that never, ever would, but I'm too lazy to write a real story, so I'll just _deus ex machina_ her out of trouble with a new alien race or magic spell or whatever") (Not that the _Harry Potter_ series is guilty of that in, ... oh: _every fucking book, for fuck's sake!_) (Not that I have anger issues about this, and everything else in the world) (Oh, no) (Not me).

No, it wasn't. It was actually a crane that the stage crew used to lower an actor onto the stage from 'on high.' The actor was playing a god, you see, and with a wave of his magic schlong, everything came up roses and cum stains, and Perseus walked away with Medusa's head, because that's how it's all supposed to turn out, evil triumphing over good, and all.

(I mean, after all, what the _fuck_ did Medusa ever do to Perseus, but does anybody care? _No!_ She's a girl, so that makes her bad. And she killed a bunch of idiot dudes, so that makes her bad..._ass!) _(but who asked me?)

So, that got ... overused in nearly every (bad) Greek play until it became a trope, and it took on its meaning today, and that is, the 'Harry-Potter-Gryffindor-wins-because-Dumbledor-says-so' plot device.

_How'm'soever!_

In this chapter, little `phfina kinda went `phfinaescque with the trope, and used the crane to lower our heroin _into_ trouble (with a capital 'T') and not lift her out of it.

Therefore squarely placing our heroin into the 'I'm a helpless lass, come rescue me, my handsome prince!' scenario.

Not that that's been ever been done before. _*cough*Twilight*cough*_

Next chapter: the handsome prince comes and rescues our fair maiden! _YES!_

... um, what's wrong with that? I can write a straight-up chapter with the happily-ever-after and all that crap, so just sit back down from your 'yeah, right, `phfina, that'll be the day you sell out!' high horse and read and enjoy the next chapter because it's gonna be rainbows and unicorns galore.

Promise.

(`phfina puts her hands behind her back, blushing that you might see every one of her fingers crossing in the mirror, and who the hell put the mirror behind me, I'd like to know, and quit starin' at my butt, you perv!)

(unless you're gonna do something-something about it)

_(I DIDN'T SAY THAT!)_

`phfina scampers off, all sweetness and innocence.

_Just like our heroin, Medea, right, `phfina? _Your chastizing voice calls after moi. (That is French) (No, it's not)

Yeah. Right. Whatevs.


	3. Φόβος — fear

**Chapter summary:** "There is nothing to fear except fear itself!" Okay, whoever said that, 2,600 years from now? (Yes, I'm aware of the anachronism) (I just made that word up) (No, I didn't) That guy's a total idiot. Oh, wait: I said 'guy' and 'idiot' in the same sentence. Isn't that a redundancy? I meant: 'oxymoron' ... like 'most' guys: morons. Not that I'm being sarcastic or anything. Not that I have any reason to be. Tied up to be sacrificed to a flesh-eating monster, and I'm supposed to be _HAPPY ABOUT THIS?_ Two words: The. Fuck?

* * *

I had a dream.

But I knew it wasn't a dream.

A dream ... you can see yourself, and you watch yourself doing things, and you try to tell yourself to stop, or to run, or ... to get dressed, because everybody sees you and is laughing at you, but you see yourself continue to do what you know is bad, and that's a dream.

Or you feel yourself floating and flying.

I like those dreams.

This dream wasn't like those.

I didn't see myself. I saw ... _out_ of myself, and instead of feeling nothing, I felt an awful nothingness, a numbness, and I tasted an acidity bitterness in my mouth.

Can you taste things in dreams?

I don't know.

And there were people, hundreds of people, populating the amphitheater around the labyrinth, and they were raucous and rowdy: impatient and excited, and they were murmuring and muttering, and the sounds of their susurrations washed down over me like the waves of the sea.

Can you hear sounds in your dreams? The soft roar of a crowd?

I don't know.

But then ... they did roar. It was the cheer of hundreds of people, raised up in one wordless cry of exultation.

And then I heard words.

"There it is!" "There she is, beast! Kill her!" "Kill her!" "Rip her up!" "Sacrifice!" "Fuck that Athenian cunt, beast!"

And the roar, and their screams washed over me, again, a wave, an angry wave of bloodthirsty anticipation.

And then I hear something very, very quiet, but louder than the roar of the crowd at its peak.

_Clop._

_Clop._

_Clop._

And I thought: hooves.

And then the sun, angled above my head was blotted out, and I dared to crane my head and look up.

The rope that had lowered me into this abyss, and the crane, itself, now, too, was gone. I had been out a while.

But what I saw dried the spit in my throat.

The legends were wrong.

I could see nothing, really: the Sun was behind the beast.

Half-behind the beast, actually: the Sun crowned its head and two, no, four daggers projected from him. _Horns?_ I thought.

But he ... they said he was nine feet tall and as wide as the tall oaks in the northern barbarian lands.

They lied.

Ten. No. Fifteen. No. Twenty feet. He stood erect, like a man, but his legs disappeared out of my periphery in an odd, hairy, boney silhouette.

And between his legs, was a long, thick bull's tail.

No. Wasn't the tail on the back? This, then, wasn't a tail it was a ...

Oh, fuck, I'm so fucked.

His dick was thicker, and longer, than my arm.

A bull's cock.

And it was hardening.

_"FUCK HER! FUCK HER TO DEATH!" _a scream rose, and then was echoed, and echo. "Kill her!" "Rip the bitch up!"

Bloodthirsty bastards.

His stomach was the smallest part of him, and he 'V'-ed to massive, huge shoulders. If I were a bard, I still would have no words to describe how wide he was at the shoulders.

He made Hercules look like scholar's malnourished runt of a son.

And his arms.

Thick as me. Fucking as thick as me, and muscles bulging and working, even as he just stood still at the entrance of the chamber, just looking down at me, his horns holding up the Sun and scoring the sky.

They weren't arms, they couldn't be: they were cedars. And his arms tapered, but only slightly, down to ... down to hands. Massive hands, the size and shape of boulders, and his fingers, each a sausage, worked, gripping tightly, then loosening, then gripping again, as he breathed, as if he couldn't still them, as if they needed to be ripping into things, now, to be to their purpose.

Atop his shoulders was nothing, no neck at all, just a massive head that looked, looking at it in the glare of the Sun, ... _wrong._ He face was all ... fucked up. It wasn't human, and me trying to put a human face on it just made it more wrong.

So I replaced the image with a horse's head, and it suddenly clicked, and I couldn't stop myself, I started laughing.

It was the most terrifying thing I ever saw, and I was laughing right in its face, I was laughing _at_ its face, and I couldn't stop myself.

I saw its shoulders tighten up, and I heard the slow, steady breaths, like the bellows of a blacksmith, burning air and spitting out of its nostrils like flames, wash over me, and I was sickened by it, the heat stung my skin, and his breath stunk of animal and something else: rottenness, it was fetid, and made me retch involuntarily.

Which stopped up my laughter, at any rate.

But the Cretins heard me, or saw me laughing.

"She mocks you, beast! The smart-ass Athenian is laughing at you! Devour her! Make her know pain and know the might of Crete!"

I looked up at the beast. In stillness he emanated an awesome power, like ...

Like, well, a caged animal, just watching the gate, just waiting to be unleashed.

He snorted, "Grrrph!" and spittle sprayed, but lightly, just a drop or two, like a light rain, over my face.

Then he turned, and sprung away, blurring away like the lightning of Zeus.

_Clop-clop-clop-clop-clop!_

It sounded ... wrong! Just so wrong! A horse's hooves make a certain sound on the cobblestones, because there are four of them, but this gait was half-wrong. The beast was _running_, not galloping, and that just didn't fit the sound he made as he ran, or it did fit, but the sound just sounded wrong to what I had always heard up to now.

The crowd of Cretans didn't care about my thoughts about this, however. They shouted their anger and disappointed, and booed and catcalled loudly.

But then...

"What? No! _NO! Get ... kkkk!"_

A man's voice ... a boy, actually, rose higher, and higher in pitch, ending in a loud, wet sound, like cantaloupe being dropped from a great height.

Then a voice projected through a horn, calm, dispassionate. "The beast has decided to hunt before taking the sacrifice."

And the crowd roared, joyfully. And the roar shook the air itself as their cheered on the monstrosity.

Then I heard it again. _Clop-clop-clop-clop-clop!_

Then screaming, pleas, and then a wet, goring sound, or a wet, crunching sound, and then nothing.

They the roaring of the crowd.

Then ... a girl's voice. "Guys! Guys! Stick together! We have to stick together if we have any chance! Stick together!"

It was Eurydice. She always was our little organizer.

Then, "Fuck you, Eurydice, you're just a girl! What do you know?"

"No, Castor, don't! It's going after the ones who go off on their ..."

"Shut up!" he shouted.

Then the sound of running, and, "No, Castor, stay with us," Eurydice cried tearfully.

Then ... _Clop-clop-clop-clop-clop!_

Then the screaming of the boy, Castor, who thought he knew better, and then ... silence.

It was like the beast was silent as Death, then, coming out of nowhere, was a force of nature, a whirlwind of speed and strength.

Then the roar of the crowd over the dispassionate announcement: "The beast has felled its seventh victim. Only the group of five and one foolish straggler remain before he takes the sacrifice."

And the crowd roared.

And then I felt myself slipping away, slipping back into my dream-not-dream, and I prayed. I prayed to the nonexistent gods that Eurydice was right that the beast would leave them alone if they stayed in a group, and I prayed they stayed in a group.

And I wondered ... who could be the straggler?

And, as I started to slip away, the name came to me of the only boy who volunteered to be tribute, his chest all puffed out with pride, saying he would slay the beast himself and end Crete's reign of terror over us.

_Theseus._ Just barely a man, his rippling muscles just now formed from the baby fat, so full of himself, so gods-damned cock-sure and confident.

_"I'll protect you, Medea!"_ he declared after emptying himself into me. _"You'll see!"_ he said, _"I'll show the world what a man is when they see an Athenian standing tall over that monstrosity!"_

He talked big, and knew exactly what he wanted, and when he wanted it (like: right now).

And I fell for his looks and his protective manly, youthful, brimming confidence, didn't I?

Yeah, his 'confidence.' And I sure bolstered it, too. Didn't I?

_"I'm a man now," _he crowed. _"I'm a man!"_

Gods! He was just so exuberant afterwards.

I did not know I was his first.

"Yes, Theseus," I said quietly under him, his seed that had filled me dripped out from between my legs, "you are a man now."

"That's right!" he said, there was just no dimming his confidence. "And I'll show you. I'll show the world! I'll slay that beast and bring you home and make you my queen. You'll see!"

"Yes, Theseus," I said, looking at this confident boy, the son of King Aegeus, and I hoped, I just hoped, that his words ringing with overflowing belief, also rung with truth, too.

I hoped my hope wasn't misplaced.

"Gods!" I heard.

"Gods! I don't believe it! It's ... it's huge!"

"Get it!" Eurydice's voice.

"With what?" a panicked boy's voice.

Then ... screaming. And rending. Then panic and running, with the sound of sandals on stone.

Then _clop-clop-clop-clop!_

Then more screams. And the roar of the crowd. And then silence.

"The beast has felled the last victim!" the announcer intoned.

And the crowd cheered and roared: "Sacrifice! Sacrifice!"

And I wept. That was my prayer. That was the worth of it. I prayed that they would stay together, and they did, but what did that do for them? Nothing! No gods came to save them. There was just them, and the beast, and then ... there was just the beast.

And I thought to myself sadly: _What happened to Theseus?_

Wasn't it supposed to be that the brave prince overcame all odds to rescue his truly beloved? Theseus couldn't do that if he were dead, so he couldn't be dead, right? Didn't the announcer intone the falling of each? No. He didn't, just the exciting ones. But ... wouldn't Theseus put up the most fight? Be the bravest and boldest? What happened to him?

But I knew what happened to him. After all his talk, he was just another Athenian boy, trampled under the hooves of the monster, not even worthy of garnering a remark from the dispassionate announcer, who didn't even know, nor care, about just one more Athenian, be he of royal or common blood.

We were all sport to them, the bloodthirsty crowd.

But I couldn't help feeling betrayed. Where was all Theseus' talk now? Where was his heroic last stand? Was this all his words came to?

I felt used, somehow, even though I knew it couldn't be Theseus' fault. Not against that monstrosity. I mean, what could he, or anyone, do against it? Five Athenian youths tried to stand together against him, and the result of their effort came to nought, or, more precisely: it came to the inevitable.

What could one ruddy little man-boy do against a half-monster, half-god?

Nothing. You could not sail out of a whirlpool. You could not wield the lightning. You could not fly to the Sun. We were mere mortals, and the Earth, and its effects were immortal. You can't kill a thunderstorm, but it surely could kill you.

I turned my head away from that blue, blue sky that was black to my eyes, and I wept.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry."

It was ... it had to be all my fault. I was tied to a stone table, a perfect little sacrificial waif, and I could do nothing, but I knew this was all because of me. If I had prayed, if I had believed, maybe the others would have been saved somehow. Maybe Athena would've come down and rescued them. Maybe they could've ... I don't know, constructed a rudimentary lathe to fashion some kind of weapons from sticks lying about.

Of course, there were no sticks lying about this maze of solid stone, just a bit of sand to slip you up, as you were wearing sandals, and to absorb the blood.

And I looked at myself, through my eyes, and saw that this would be how I died, sarcastic and cynical to the end, and I had prided myself on these characteristics. Everybody else around me were chauvinists and idiots ... and usually both, and that just made me feel _so superior_ to all of them, didn't it, Medea: _Ooh! You are so smart and superior!_

But ... yes.

I was so smart and superior.

And they, my companions, were so stupid, and so dead.

But that didn't make me feel better. It made me feel so terribly lonely, and, being alone, it left me hating myself, because I had been singled out. I always drew myself apart from them, and this was the consequence of my superiority, my separating myself from them.

Now there was no more them, and it was all my fault.

I wept, and I awaited my end. Alone.

* * *

**A/N:** Gory chapter, my dears, but Phobos isn't the god of fear ('phobia') as we think of today. No, Phobos was the god of gore, and our little moo-cow friend is not so little and not so 'nymphs and shepherds tending their flocks' or 'beauty and the beast' kind of 'heart of gold' monster. He's been locked up in the labyrinth because he started eating the citizenry of Crete and was basically unkillable.

Gods in the ancient times ... well: that's how they rolled. And this dude isn't even a god, _per se._ (That is Greek.) (No, actually, it isn't).

Pop quiz time, interesting trivial fact: did you know there's no word for 'yes' in ancient civilized languages? There's a word for 'no' but not for 'yes'? If you look at all the Romance languages, you think 'Si' means 'yes.' It actually doesn't. It actually comes from 'Sic' meaning 'Thus' ... kinda like: 'yo, suck [sic/suck, geddit?] it, biatch!'

If you look at other regions in by-gone eras they also used 'Oc' for 'yes' (you can look that up). 'Oc' coming from 'Hoc' ("That" or "This") like 'Hoc est corpus [meum].' You know: "Hocus Pocus" as the Brits used to mock Papist for their belief in the Divine Presence.

People have been saying "there is no god" since ... well, whenever. I guess you don't need to be tied down to a sacrificial table to be asking these questions, as our little mel-mel ... no. Wait. our little medea.

**Disclaimer:** Neither mel-mel caramel in "Yellow Pages" nor Medea in ... well, "Medea" have any reference to persons living or dead, and any such implied similarity is _totes_ coincidental. So: not like me, my girls I'm writing about. Not at all.

_Yeah, right, `phfina. Pull the other one._

ANYHOO! This was a light and fluffy little a/n, but this story is anything but light. This chapter is just some off-scene/implied violence, and a crowd of people not appalled, but actually cheering it on.

You can't stomach this? Look what's been going on in the world.

Uh, that's not helpful. Nor charitable (it's true, but that doesn't help you, my dear reader). What I'm saying is that it's going to get worse and worse, not because the Minos' taur is what it (or 'he') is, but because people are as they are.

_`phfina, ... but ... is there anything redemptive in this story at all, or is it just slash porn?_

Yeah, you have a total right to ask that question. To yourself. Everyday: is what I'm reading redemptive or not-put-downable-because-of-the-train-wreck-factor?

If you can't read something, close the browser and walk away. Please. I'm actually begging you.

AND.

Look at me. Look at little me. Am I, in your eyes, a girl who writes slash porn just for the catharsis?

There's something in this story for me, or else I so wouldn't be writing it. Lemme tell you a secret. I _HATE_ writing. And the only thing more I hate than writing is publishing, because then you read it. And you might not understand, or might not have the patience, you microwave popcorn readers, you (I love you, btw). And then you might get hurt, really hurt, reading my stuff.

My stuff is not an easy read. Except maybe 'Fireworks' and that story I cried writing the first word all the way to writing the last word, so enjoy that one. Yeah.

Oh, and "Rosalie gets asked out on a date." Where little Violet stood her up and then committed suicide? Oh, yeah. Rosalie took that one well.

So, yeah, my stories are not light and fluffy, like I try to pretend to be in my cute, little a/n's. (Sweet, little, innocent `phfina asks: "what does a/n mean, mommy?")

(Ouch. Christmastime, and I'm missing my mommy ... that I never had.) (and my job, being fired and all. Not that I'm angry, bitter, and sad about that. Not that I didn't know how much my self-worth was tied up into my job, and I know it's not my fault, and I know they miss me, but ... what do I say at happy hours now? "What do you do, `phfina?" "Oh, I'm looking at options now"? "I'm between jobs"? "I'm reexamining my career"? Okay, like: _what_ career? And, aren't those just so gossamer thin little obvious lies, and then everybody else just paints on an understanding smile and inches away from the girl with cooties, and doesn't that just make me feel _extra_ special, now, doesn't it?)

But this story is exceptionally _not_ light and fluffy, so it's not going to be an easy read, and it's going to get harder and harder for a long while before it gets easy. And the redemptive element? Anticlimax.

You know what 'climax' means, right?

(I do, too. Boy, do I ever know what it means. Several times a day)

You know what 'anti' means, right?

Little `phfina's stories aren't stories, right? The handsome prince doesn't ride in and rescue the girl and then ride off with her into the distance with a backdrop of this golden orb of a sunset signifying 'happily ever after.' Little `phfina's stories are ... well, little `phfina's stories.

I just hope, and pray, every day, you find something in them, because I just hope, and pray, every day, that what I put into them, my heart, is worth finding for you.

Please. If it hurts you, tell me. I need to know this. If it helps, tell me. You don't know how much it means to me that it does help. You don't know how much it helps me to go on today, and every single day.

kisses for, um, 'youses,'

`phfina


End file.
